• Question: If our western trend of keeping clean is to keep up what do you think that will happen to less LEDC's.

    Asked by bootbert to Michael, Sarah on 15 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by rabascone.
    • Photo: Michael Loughlin

      Michael Loughlin answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Thats a good question if very worrying

      The main problem is fresh and clean drinking water simply..LEDC or developed countries that suffer an earthquake and suffer disruption to the water system are open to horrendous diarrhoeal disease such as Cholera. This may also be the case if there is continued flooding due to climate changes as sewage overflows and mixes with drinking water,
      Diarrhoeal disease such as cholera can cause you to lose up to 20 litres of water a day which kills even otherwise healthy and strong individuals. If you are young, old or starved then its so much more dangerous.
      The problem is antibiotics don’t stop these diseases as to be honest the bacteria is not in the body long enough to be attacked by either the immune system of antibiotics , its flushed away with the diarrhoea. Whic is why in the UK we just had to sit it out ( no pun intended) and wait for the bacteria to leave the body while all the time taking in plenty of clean water to keep healthy,
      In LEDC there is no clean water to take in so you just keep replacing the cholera that leaves with new cholera infecting the water you take to try and keep alive
      Thats the biggest worry at the moment…not keeping us clean ..but access to clean water to allow people to recover from diarrhoeal disease. An inconvenience in the UK…killing over 2 million epople a year else where.

      good question,,excuse the froth

    • Photo: Sarah Burl

      Sarah Burl answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      I am not sure that having a cleaner Western country will affect the LEDCs other than when people travel from one to the other. If you come from a sterile environment then go to a non-sterile environment you may be more susceptible to disease. If you are from the UK and you go to The Gambia then you are a lot more susceptible than Gambians to malaria. When you look at the parasite count in a sick British person it will be much less than you see in a Gambian individual. I got malaria last year and I had a larger number of parasites than expected of a European when I was not that sick but this is probably becuase I have lived in the Gambia for 7 years and have built up some imunity to malaria.

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